Keynote Address

Etched in Time and Grooves:

The Sounds of North African Jewish History

Dr. Christopher Silver

Dr. Christopher Silver will deliver the opening keynote address at noon EDT on Monday, June 19.

Christopher Silver is the Segal Family Assistant Professor in Jewish History and Culture in the Department of Jewish Studies at McGill University. He earned his PhD in history from UCLA. Recipient of grants from the Posen Foundation, the American Academy of Jewish Research, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, and the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, Silver is the author of numerous articles on North African history and music, including in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Jewish Social Studies, and Hespéris-Tamuda. He is also the founder and curator of the website Gharamophone.com, a digital archive of North African records from the first half of the twentieth century. His first book, Recording History: Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth Century North Africa, was published in June 2022 with Stanford University Press.

Feinstein Lecture

Books, Letter-Writing,

and the Written Word in Early Judaism

Dr. Malka Simkovich

Dr. Malka Simkovich will deliver the annual Feinstein Lecture at 2:45 pm EDT on Thursday, June 22.

Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich is the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies and the director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She is the author of The Making of Jewish Universalism: From Exile to Alexandria (2016) and Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism (2018), which received the 2019 AJL Judaica Reference Honor Award. Simkovich’s articles have been published in academic journals such as the Harvard Theological Review and the Journal for the Study of Judaism, and in mainstream publications such as The Jewish Review of Books and The Christian Century. She is involved in numerous interreligious dialogue projects which help to increase understanding between Christians and Jews.

About the Feinstein Lecture

The Association of Jewish Libraries received a grant from the Foundation for Jewish Culture (FJC) given by the Myer and Rosalind Feinstein family to fund an annual lecture. Lectures on Judaic bibliography and librarianship were delivered at the annual conferences from 1996 to 2010. The FJC is no longer active, but it left AJL with monies to continue these lectures. The Feinstein Lecture resumed at the 2019 AJL conference and will continue to encourage and inspire Judaica librarians at future conferences. 

• Registration is now open! The cost of attending the conference is $180 for AJL members, $40 for students, and $90 for retirees. The cost for non–AJL members is $290. Registration includes all conference sessions and access to the session videos. Visit the conference webpage for registration information and answers to frequently asked questions.

• Conference support is available to current members of AJL and students. Note that most applications for support must be submitted by Thursday, April 20. See the Conference Support and Student Scholarship pages for details.

• Visit the AJL Zazzle store for Conference 2023 T-shirts, mugs, notebooks, and more!